UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi...

I am a newbie in the world of unix and want to learn but yet at the same time, I just managed to hose my used Unix box. Hopefully one of the experts out there can help me out of this mess.

I have a Linksys router that was configured to have a static IP address because I needed to run a web server (192.168.1.152). My other two PCs were manually configured to have these IP addresses respectively (192.168.1.150 & 192.168.1.151). Therefore while installing Sun Solaris 8, I tried to configured it to be 192.168.1.153 and used IPv6 with the DNS and the domain of my cable modem at the same time. Somehow, I must have selected DHCP as well because the install I think did not complete and now whenever I boot the unix box, I get this error message:

ifconfig:hme0: wait timed out, operation still pending...
/sbin/dhcpinfo: interface not in appropriate state for command
Hostname: unknown
The system is coming up. Please wait.
Checking ufs filesystems
/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s6: is stable
.
.
.
Abort - core dumped
Configuring network interface addresses: hme0
Abort - core dumped
in.rdisc: No interfaces up
The IP address previously set on the network interface is no longer available. The system state is corrupted. System identification can no longer continue. Press return to continue.

When I pressed continue, all I get is an endless loop of asking me to press to continue.

My question is:
1) How do I get out of this mode when I boot up the machine long enough to get a break to re-install the OS?
2) While installing the OS how do I configure the box so that I can get it hook up to my cable modem?


I have been doing a search for help on the net but couldn't find any solutions. Hope you can help me out of this big mess that I had created.

Thanks in advance,
Unix Newbie

If this is a SUN system and you have a console on it, you can hit the Stop and A key at the same time to go to the ok prompt.

From there, follow your installation instructions to re-do the install.

If you boot from your cdrom
boot cdrom -s

from here you can mount your root directory
mount /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0 /mnt
cd /mnt

you might be able to run sys-unconfig which I think is in the /usr/sbin directory.

This will then on a reboot ask you to enter your host name, country, ip address etc etc. without having to reinstall.